1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an improvement on an apparatus, such as a camera, using information provided for identification of each individual film cartridge.
2. Description of Related Art
A technique for providing a magnetic recording part on a film and recording and reproducing information about the film and matters related to photo-taking into and from the magnetic recording part has already come to be popularly practiced.
In a camera using such a type of film, by detecting a film cartridge indicator (which is provided on the film cartridge for indicating which film among an unused film, a partially-exposed film, an exposed film and a developed film is contained in the film cartridge loaded into the camera; hereinafter, the film cartridge indicator being referred to as the VEI indicator) and magnetic information recorded on the magnetic recording part of the film, even after a partially-exposed film is temporarily rewound into the film cartridge, the film cartridge containing the partially-exposed film can be loaded again into the camera to set the first one of unexposed frames of the film to an aperture position of the camera, so that a photo-taking operation can resume on the film cartridge. However, in a case where a film cartridge containing a partially-exposed film is taken out from the camera, although the photographer can recognize the partially-exposed state of the film by viewing the VEI indicator, it is not easy for the photographer to verify up to which of frames the film has been exposed.
To solve this problem, there has been recently proposed a camera capable of storing and displaying an ID number of each film carridge and the number of exposed frames of film corresponding to the ID number. This camera is arranged to store the number of exposed frames when the film is temporarily rewound in a partially-exposed state, and then, to store the ID number of the film cartridge in response to an ID number input action caused by an ID number input operation by the photographer, so that the film cartridge ID number is correlated with the number of exposed frames. In other words, if the photographer designates an ID number of a film cartridge when the camera is in a predetermined mode after the ID number input action, the number of exposed frames of film of the cartridge is displayed on a display device of the camera, so that the photographer can recognize the number of exposed frames of film of the particular film cartridge.
In a case where, as described above, the camera has such a structure as to store an ID number of a film cartridge and the number of exposed frames of film of the film cartridge corresponding to the ID number into a storage element, since there is a limit to the storage capacity of the storage element, a problem arises in that only information for a limited number of film cartridges (for example, five cartridges) can be stored.